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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201972">It's Personal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseofmalfoy/pseuds/Houseofmalfoy'>Houseofmalfoy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Death Eaters, First War with Voldemort, M/M, POV Kingsley Shacklebolt, Past Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:41:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseofmalfoy/pseuds/Houseofmalfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s what it was between him and Rodolphus, he mused, looking at the man who was sitting on the floor, staring blankly at the wall as if he’d already received the Dementor’s kiss the world was sure he would be sentenced to. It was personal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rodolphus Lestrange/Kingsley Shacklebolt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Career Day: A Dumbledore's Armada Flash Fic Competition</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It's Personal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            Anonymous in the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Career_Day">Career_Day</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strong>Prompt:</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Auror</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Kingsley watched the younger wizard through the bars that separated them, his wand held loosely in his hand because he didn’t think the other man a threat in the slightest, though he knew exactly how powerful his wandless magic could be if he wanted to attack the Auror. He stood, stoically looking at the slouched, defeated posture of Rodolphus Lestrange leaning against the wall of a holding cell at the ministry of magic. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The trial would not be until three days, and until then the four death eaters were held in separate cells in the Auror’s department. Kingsley had had no desire to be involved in the case at all, but when he’d been assigned to guard Rodolphus he hadn’t had a valid reason to refuse the task. He’d only been an Auror for a year and a half, compared to most wizards here having been around for well over a decade; he had no place yet to refuse based on personal issues. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s what it was between him and Rodolphus, he mused, looking at the man who was sitting on the floor, staring blankly at the wall as if he’d already received the Dementor’s kiss the world was sure he would be sentenced to. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>personal</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Kingsley wished it wasn’t, it might’ve made his job a lot easier, it wouldn’t have put him in the position of nearly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>nearly </span>
  </em>
  <span>sympathising with a death eater who’d committed one of the most heinous crimes he’d ever heard of. But it was all too </span>
  <em>
    <span>personal</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How did this happen?” Kingsley asked, surprising himself with his words when he walked closer to the bars and watched as Rodolphus tilted his head to look at him. He looked like he was mere seconds away from being violently ill, he looked the way Kingsley imagined the Longbottom Aurors did now. Alive, but barely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had to ask. The trial would focus only on whether the man in front of him was guilty or not, and there was little doubt in Kingsley’s mind that he was, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t comprehend what had gone through Rodolphus’ mind last night, how he could’ve committed a crime that was so repulsive, so cruel, it was hard to even put the disgust he felt thinking of it into words. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t the same man he’d once known. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rodolphus had been one year below him during their time at Hogwarts, and for the first several years he hadn’t paid the younger Slytherin much attention. Rodolphus, alongside his brother Rabastan, their best friend Narcissa, and several of their friends that Kingsley’d always suspected mostly hung around for the sake of being respected by the other students, had always drawn attention to themselves; Kingsley had always tried to avoid the likes of them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Shacklebolts were a pureblood family of the Sacred 28, which in Slytherin house had always meant he enjoyed a certain type of respect from the other students whether he tried to gain it or not, but his family had never been interested in blood purity as much as the others on the list. He looked down on the Blacks, Lestranges, and Malfoys and their warped ideas on how much better their pure blood made them compared to their peers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He and Rodolphus hadn’t properly met until Kingsley was a sixth-year Prefect and Rodolphus had just been given his own Prefect’s badge. Initially, Rodolphus hadn’t said a word to him, something Kingsley had written off as arrogance until he’d directly asked him something and Rodolphus had only mumbled something barely comprehensible in a flustered response. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their first kiss would happen a few months after that first meeting, one night alone in the common room after pouring over quidditch game plans that Kingsley knew little about but Rodolphus could talk about for hours. His brother was the expert on the game, but it didn’t lessen the excitement in Rodolphus’ eyes when explaining why this setup would guarantee a victory against Ravenclaw. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From that first kiss, shared in a dark corner of the common room through nervous laughter and hesitant movements that revealed just how new and just how terrifying it was to the both of them, began a relationship of shorts that lasted until the end of Kingsley’s seventh year. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last time he’d spoken one on one to Rodolphus had been then, just before Kingsley’s graduation, and the younger student had shown more of repulsion to Voldemort and his death eaters than a desire to join them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All he’d heard about Rodolphus, and the Lestrange family as a whole, since then was that their parents had died suddenly, followed by a marriage to Bellatrix Black that had seemed all too rushed and impulsive to Kingsley. Rodolphus had inherited his father’s business at the age of seventeen, and in some circles was rumoured to be alcoholic; Kingsley hadn’t known any more than that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Up until now. It confused and sickened Kingsley how much things had changed since that graduation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d already begun to suspect Rodolphus was ignoring his question or was too far locked away in his own mind to have heard him in the first place when he received an answer. “Not a clue,” Kingsley heard him say, his voice raw as though he hadn’t used it in weeks, but empty of any anger, cruelty, or even guilt or regret that he might have expected Rodolphus to express. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kingsley didn’t know what to make of his response. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck does that mean, Lestrange?” He asked again, and if Rodolphus was surprised at the sudden anger in his tone he didn’t show it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kingsley wished it didn’t hurt when Rodolphus shrugged and repeated himself, as emotionless as before. “Not a clue. Nothing you could’ve done to prevent it, if that’s what you’re asking. Say that to Cissa, would you? When she asks.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was the last thing Rodolphus said to him for the rest of his shift. He couldn’t stand the man for it. </span>
</p>
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